Do you feel husbandry standards have stagnated/stopped improving?

[Dorifto]

Not all soils are equals, and I'd stick to the proved ones. Always there is a chance of contamination, coco fiber inclusive. Also I'd never rehouse a full setup at once for that reason. Unfortunately I have seen more death cases due to excessive moisture on coco fiber trying to have a moist surface than the ones caused by contaminated topsoil.

With topsoil or any other organic based substrate, there is a risk of a CO² burst before the substrate settles, this specially happens if it's moisted excessively. So maybe some of those deaths were related to suffication rather than intoxication.

I simply prefer real plants because of their autorehulation properties, as I found them very useful to keep them at stable conditions, regardless my house climate.

 

[viper69]

There is quite a bit known about tarantulas in regard to the listed attributes. One just has to go look for it since it is locked away in academic journals, some of which are behind paywalls. For captive care, there is even more known about what works and what doesn't written in books and hobby journals such as in the journal of the British Tarantula Society. When one uses just one or two sources for information, such as internet groups and/ or YouTube, it would appear not much is known, but there is decades of experience and trial and error published on good old fashioned paper.

I'm not certain that when people speak of a creating an enclosure that replicates nature, or some aspect of it, that they are understanding the nature of the tarantula itself in order to accurately judge whether a more naturalistic set up is more or less beneficial than a plain "box of dirt" setup. Without knowing how a tarantula lives in nature, either by reading about it or studying it first hand, there is no basis to compare the success of captive care. Most of the time, I get the feeling that people who build elaborate naturalistic enclosures with plants, lights, a living soil with isopods or springtails, etc. are only guessing at it. If the goal of caring for tarantulas in captivity is to get them to live as they do in nature, then there is a good chance that outcome would be undesirable for the keeper.

In general, tarantulas are sedentary secretive creatures and I'm not sure most understand what that means exactly. The natural behavior of any tarantula is to stay out of sight and motionless unless hunting or carrying out another behavior to achieve physiological homeostasis. If one has a Grammostola rosea or Lasiodora parahybana, as examples, that stay out in the open, moves dirt around all day, and so on, then the objective of replicating their behavior as it would be seen in nature has failed. Tarantulas such as G. rosea and L. parahybana in nature are fossorial tarantulas that live in deep burrows in their respective ecosystems. If they are not acting the same in captivity as a tarantula the hobby calls "fossorial" or "obligate burrowers" in captivity then they are not acting as they would in nature. Therefore a so-called naturalistic enclosure that is meant to replicate nature achieves the exact same thing as a plain box of dirt setup.

What newcomers to the tarantula game don't realize is that tarantula care hasn't changed in at least the past 20 years and yet new and old species to the hobby are being successfully reared all the time. It is presented in a new format, but it isn't new. Think that top soil as a substrate is a novel idea? It isn't. Loamy soils were a recommendation for burrowing tarantulas written about long ago. Also think that the problems encountered when keeping an Avicularia species without a lot of ventilation has been recent discovery? Think again.

All true

 

[YungRasputin]

There is quite a bit known about tarantulas in regard to the listed attributes. One just has to go look for it since it is locked away in academic journals, some of which are behind paywalls. For captive care, there is even more known about what works and what doesn't written in books and hobby journals such as in the journal of the British Tarantula Society. When one uses just one or two sources for information, such as internet groups and/ or YouTube, it would appear not much is known, but there is decades of experience and trial and error published on good old fashioned paper.

I’ve noticed that this is second time you’ve thrown this particular shade at me - it’s a good retort i grant you however the resources I’ve used/been exposed to is beyond just YouTube blah blah blah - am i an expert? no, nor have I claimed to be but more to the point while there is some things we do know abou arachnids there is a lot that we don’t and that is my point - particularly, comparative to other animals

(eg: we are prescribing psychiatric medications to cats that i also give to my human clients [xanax], we have mapped the entirety of the brain of mice, and we’ve also become so familiar with the brains of whales that not only can we pin point centers of intelligence but also have enough information to conduct legitimate comparative study of human-whale intelligence - so much so that the debate is not whether or not whales are as intelligent as humans but that they could be *more* intelligent than humans)

which is, in all point of fact true as evidenced by the fact that I ask questions all the time that all these smarty pants people don’t seem to have the answers too eg: we don’t know how many species of tarantula exist, we don’t know which is the most venomous, we have not ranked or categorized the venom of taranatulas, there exists virtually no medical information on tarantulas outside the use of cornstarch and vague references to supposed niche veterinarians which are never seen outside of those references and so on and so on - there is plenty that we don’t know and of which is relevant to this discussion

I'm not certain that when people speak of a creating an enclosure that replicates nature, or some aspect of it, that they are understanding the nature of the tarantula itself in order to accurately judge whether a more naturalistic set up is more or less beneficial than a plain "box of dirt" setup. Without knowing how a tarantula lives in nature, either by reading about it or studying it first hand, there is no basis to compare the success of captive care. Most of the time, I get the feeling that people who build elaborate naturalistic enclosures with plants, lights, a living soil with isopods or springtails, etc. are only guessing at it. If the goal of caring for tarantulas in captivity is to get them to live as they do in nature, then there is a good chance that outcome would be undesirable for the keeper.

the “box of dirt” argument is annoying insomuch as it is explicitly fallacious (argumentum ad antiquitatem + argumentum ad simplicate) and frankly, extremely silly

pointing to the basics of arachnid care reptitiously and saying “everyone has done this for ages, therefore, this is the pinnacle of what can be achieved and absolutely no innovations or changes can take place thereafter” - doesn’t seem like a legitimate argument

particularly because if it were so simple and so easy then there wouldn’t be endless threads about how it’s apparently not so simple, and, not so easy - i don’t think it’s unreasonable to suggest that arachnoculture like aquaculture is deceptively simple and that it’s a bit more than just having a box of dirt/water

In general, tarantulas are sedentary secretive creatures and I'm not sure most understand what that means exactly. The natural behavior of any tarantula is to stay out of sight and motionless unless hunting or carrying out another behavior to achieve physiological homeostasis. If one has a Grammostola rosea or Lasiodora parahybana, as examples, that stay out in the open, moves dirt around all day, and so on, then the objective of replicating their behavior as it would be seen in nature has failed. Tarantulas such as G. rosea and L. parahybana in nature are fossorial tarantulas that live in deep burrows in their respective ecosystems. If they are not acting the same in captivity as a tarantula the hobby calls "fossorial" or "obligate burrowers" in captivity then they are not acting as they would in nature. Therefore a so-called naturalistic enclosure that is meant to replicate nature achieves the exact same thing as a plain box of dirt setup.

as i have said previously there is limits to what i think can be achieved with captivity as present - what you’re describing seems to be a (highly interesting mind you) difference in captive and wild behavior of which is necessitated by basic survival

the difference here being that captive T’s are the queens of their domain where there exists no natural predators or any other forms of life outside of feeders, plants, clean up crews, etc and this is it - largely, they’re on their own, in a silent tank, in a silent room, with no sounds of nature - i think it’s obvious that this would in turn effect their overall behavior patterns and i don’t really see how this is a “gotcha” against Team Wild Nature

I’ve also said previously that i question the idea that everything which exists in nature should be replicated - an example i’ve used several times is a keeper i remember listening to or reading about who had a species where their natural locale experienced monsoon seasons so to replicate this they “flooded” the burrow seasonally - interesting but unnecessarily disturbing would be my immediate thoughts on this

i also think their behavior patterns, how they relate to their enclosure outside of their immediate surroundings (den) is the point I’ve been making

What newcomers to the tarantula game don't realize is that tarantula care hasn't changed in at least the past 20 years and yet new and old species to the hobby are being successfully reared all the time. It is presented in a new format, but it isn't new. Think that top soil as a substrate is a novel idea? It isn't. Loamy soils were a recommendation for burrowing tarantulas written about long ago. Also think that the problems encountered when keeping an Avicularia species without a lot of ventilation has been recent discovery? Think again.

yes, it is my belief that I am the Nikola Tesla of arachnid keeping because i use top soil and big enclosures and am aware of the SADS incident

i suppose aquaculture hasn’t changed since Robert Warington either? like i genuinely find that claim hard to believe that absolutely “nothing has changed” in arachnid keeping in the past 20-30 years - everything changes that’s life

 

[Arachnophobphile]

Tarantula keeping husbandry will always be evolving. This is because arachnologist don't even know everything about T's yet and probably never will.

Who knows, there's always a new aspect that comes up on keeping any particular T. Caribena versicolor anyone??? Most people remember what the standard was which resulted in many a deaths.

 

[Jonathan6303]

I do think that when we make our tarantula enclosures, we should make it as naturalistic as possible. I do have a question. I know how daves little beasties uses wild collected bark and moss. Would it be fine if I used my local wildlife in New York.

 

[Dorifto]

I do think that when we make our tarantula enclosures, we should make it as naturalistic as possible. I do have a question. I know how daves little beasties uses wild collected bark and moss. Would it be fine if I used my local wildlife in New York.

If it's free of chemicals, I don't see the problem. Simply remove the first few inches of substrate, and take the rest.

 

[Olan]

I think that Grammostola and Brachypelma in nature dig a long burrow under a rock to escape the super bright, hot, desert sun. I don’t think mine bother to burrow because there is never direct sun in my T room. And I don’t think I’ll be trying to replicate this part of the natural environment.

 

[YungRasputin]

I do think that when we make our tarantula enclosures, we should make it as naturalistic as possible. I do have a question. I know how daves little beasties uses wild collected bark and moss. Would it be fine if I used my local wildlife in New York.

yes - i live in WV and collect stuff from the mountains all the time, that’s where i get a lot of my décor that i use in my enclosures - he also made some real good videos that teaches people how to collect and “clear” things from the wild as well

you can also boil + bake hard woods and other materials if you want to make sure 100% that there isn’t any unwanted travelers on your materials - that’s another thing, if you do collect wooden materials it has to be hard wood so it can hold up overtime and endure things like misting and so on

 

[Egon]

Great discussion, everyone.

I'm new to tarantulas but have been keeping aquariums for decades and snakes for several years. I'm surprised by how quickly people on tarantula forums criticize more naturalistic setups compared to other animal keepers. Instead of saying, that works for you but this works for me, people seem very intent and strident in directly rebuking practices like including springtails and live plants with little evidence to support their disagreement. Saying we don't truly know how tarantulas live in the wild is not sufficient in promoting the most basic of setups.

I respect that people make their own husbandry choices, but this intense pushback puzzles me when other hobbies are more open-minded and have reaped the benefits of improved care. No, I don't think everyone has to do the same thing, but let people explore and further husbandry if they wish without hammering them because you secretly fear that it may lead you to re-examine your own practices.

I understand that adding more variables to an enclosure adds more things to work with, but it seems like there are also plenty of issues with plain boxes filled with coco fiber. Maybe adding things helps sometimes.

As a newbie with mostly slings, I'm keeping my tarantulas in very basic enclosures with coco fiber, but I do plan to change things up for my one juvenile tarantula after I get more experience. Thanks for the great discussion.

 

[RezonantVoid]

Once again, thank you everybody for a civilised discussion and for respectfully sharing your viewpoints, it has been very fun to read through everyone's thoughts on this subject.

The voting results for the poll have quite surprised me. Initially there were equal votes between options 2 and 3, and I expected that would stay the same or that more people would choose option 2. Now though, 75% of voters want to see at least some degree of change with the way we currently do things

 

[YungRasputin]

Great discussion, everyone.

I'm new to tarantulas but have been keeping aquariums for decades and snakes for several years. I'm surprised by how quickly people on tarantula forums criticize more naturalistic setups compared to other animal keepers. Instead of saying, that works for you but this works for me, people seem very intent and strident in directly rebuking practices like including springtails and live plants with little evidence to support their disagreement. Saying we don't truly know how tarantulas live in the wild is not sufficient in promoting the most basic of setups.

I respect that people make their own husbandry choices, but this intense pushback puzzles me when other hobbies are more open-minded and have reaped the benefits of improved care. No, I don't think everyone has to do the same thing, but let people explore and further husbandry if they wish without hammering them because you secretly fear that it may lead you to re-examine your own practices.

I understand that adding more variables to an enclosure adds more things to work with, but it seems like there are also plenty of issues with plain boxes filled with coco fiber. Maybe adding things helps sometimes.

As a newbie with mostly slings, I'm keeping my tarantulas in very basic enclosures with coco fiber, but I do plan to change things up for my one juvenile tarantula after I get more experience. Thanks for the great discussion.

i’ve thought about this thread after some of my last posts and i think, perhaps, part of the issue is i/others haven’t been clear as we could be when it comes to asserting the importance of naturalism

because, and to reference aquaculture again, when you set up an aquarium you’re not just throwing water in a box - you’re creating a living environment, that’s the transformation process that occurs within the nitrogen cycle or the cycling of the tank - it goes from being just a water box to a living environment with its own beneficial bacteria, temp, foliage, etc

i think the same can be said of naturalist, bioactive enclosures - you’re transforming a box of dirt into a living environment in which a living being, no different than you or me, will be living in

and it’s not just this - it’s space, how we think of space and how we think of space within spaces

eg: it’s important to the overall health of betta fish, African cichlids, etc to have hides to reduce stress levels so in terms of design the fish keeper must consider the immediate space of the hide and the surrounding space that the immediate space is within and the dynamic between those 2 spaces

^which is what i was talking about when bringing up the relationship between the spider’s den and its immediate surroundings - i don’t think these things are typically consider and i think that point of fact is what’s driving the argument that “bioactive enclosures only benefit the keeper and not the animal”

from my observations terrarium design breaks down into 2 considerations:

1) meeting the specific environmental parameters of the species you intend to keep

2) what is aesthetically pleasing to the keeper themselves - be it creating what I call “whimsical enclosures” (using children’s toys, making it look like a horror movie, etc) or pseudo-naturalism (as in, people just throw naturalistic décor in the enclosure any way they like)

so with respect to naturalism what i would add to my above arguments is greater consideration of how the specific places within the wild where these animals can be found is important and what should be emulated

which is simpler than it sounds imo because if you’re doing research and you see something to the effect of “is typically found in bushes, low foliage, under logs, etc” - this is telling you how the animal interacts with its immediate space, it’s surrounding space and how it manipulated the dynamic between the 2 in the wild in generalized way

which i think is totally important because it gives you an idea how the specimen is going to hunt, receive nutrition and hydrate - if you emulate those conditions - in the example i give this is going to give you an idea of where to place the water dish, where to mist the walls, how to drop feeders, how to move around within the enclosure when doing routine maintenance, and all sorts of things

from this basis i think naturalism could be pushed in v interesting directions - i don’t think it’s about throwing out everything we know or do but moreso about the pursuance of an ideal with an expanded mindset of what terrariums are and could be for arachnoculture

which i hope articulates my views better than previously within the thread

 

[Dry Desert]

i’ve thought about this thread after some of my last posts and i think, perhaps, part of the issue is i/others haven’t been clear as we could be when it comes to asserting the importance of naturalism

because, and to reference aquaculture again, when you set up an aquarium you’re not just throwing water in a box - you’re creating a living environment, that’s the transformation process that occurs within the nitrogen cycle or the cycling of the tank - it goes from being just a water box to a living environment with its own beneficial bacteria, temp, foliage, etc

i think the same can be said of naturalist, bioactive enclosures - you’re transforming a box of dirt into a living environment in which a living being, no different than you or me, will be living in

and it’s not just this - it’s space, how we think of space and how we think of space within spaces

eg: it’s important to the overall health of betta fish, African cichlids, etc to have hides to reduce stress levels so in terms of design the fish keeper must consider the immediate space of the hide and the surrounding space that the immediate space is within and the dynamic between those 2 spaces

^which is what i was talking about when bringing up the relationship between the spider’s den and its immediate surroundings - i don’t think these things are typically consider and i think that point of fact is what’s driving the argument that “bioactive enclosures only benefit the keeper and not the animal”

from my observations terrarium design breaks down into 2 considerations:

1) meeting the specific environmental parameters of the species you intend to keep

2) what is aesthetically pleasing to the keeper themselves - be it creating what I call “whimsical enclosures” (using children’s toys, making it look like a horror movie, etc) or pseudo-naturalism (as in, people just throw naturalistic décor in the enclosure any way they like)

so with respect to naturalism what i would add to my above arguments is greater consideration of how the specific places within the wild where these animals can be found is important and what should be emulated

which is simpler than it sounds imo because if you’re doing research and you see something to the effect of “is typically found in bushes, low foliage, under logs, etc” - this is telling you how the animal interacts with its immediate space, it’s surrounding space and how it manipulated the dynamic between the 2 in the wild in generalized way

which i think is totally important because it gives you an idea how the specimen is going to hunt, receive nutrition and hydrate - if you emulate those conditions - in the example i give this is going to give you an idea of where to place the water dish, where to mist the walls, how to drop feeders, how to move around within the enclosure when doing routine maintenance, and all sorts of things

from this basis i think naturalism could be pushed in v interesting directions - i don’t think it’s about throwing out everything we know or do but moreso about the pursuance of an ideal with an expanded mindset of what terrariums are and could be for arachnoculture

which i hope articulates my views better than previously within the thread

I totally agree, unfortunately there are " keepers " that keep and breed T,s in bulk as a business, and will always advocate that their T,s are perfectly happy in a dirt box with a hide/ water dish.
Exactly the same with Royal Pythons where breeders " rack and stack " and you will never change their mindset either.
Best is to do exactly as you would like, and leave the " rack and stackers " to carry on their way.

 

[Smotzer]

To play devils advocate, the majority of enclosures I see that are trying to be "Natural" and "bioactive" by including plants, aren't natural and are just as unnatural to the specific species or tarantula as fake plants due to the fact that the plants and specific clean up crews used in almost all cases are not native plants to the tarantula's environment thus I agree with

I get the feeling that people who build elaborate naturalistic enclosures with plants, lights, a living soil with isopods or springtails, etc. are only guessing at it.

all that I have ever seen is a wild guess, as as far as that guess go is that people know that plants naturally grow outside and there are soil life forms, so having plants and them in a set up makes it a 'natural' set up. This is just something thhat makes people feel like they are doing something. People should own the fact that they are not making "natural" set ups they're just guessing and making planted set ups.

Whether you include real plants or fake plants, random plants are only marginally more natural than the fake. This goes the same for choices of substrate, what we use in the hobby some are only a little more natural than the other but none that we use are natural as in native soils to the tarantulas except in the case of @RezonantVoid being able to collect soils he finds some of his species in. All the 'natural set ups' are guesses, and at most pseudo-naturalistic.

With all that being said, there are differences to be seen by creating pseudo-natural applications to keeping. In my plant world some of the plants I grow, to most people can be some of the hardest plants to keep alive because most people are just hobbyists and dont look/have ability at soil science and do experiments to recreate a type of soil that is more natural to them as I have, and then understand the full yearly water need cycle thhat changes. I progressed the keeping of these plants by not fully recreating thhe exact environment they grow in, but applied thhe science of soils to apply it in a way that translated into a situation where an overview of the dynamics of their soil types was recreated in the horticultural hobby, but it is not natural, i stress it is still not natural.

The hobby needs to understand the fact that all most poeple will ever do will never qualify to be a truly natural set up. and "Bioactive" is a marketing ploy that sells more materials plants and arthropods and gets more views on youtube, all soils are bioactive, all set ups are too because we dont live in a clean room. People on YT like that dave guy just parrots out useless falsities about natural and bioactive.

 

[Egon]

To play devils advocate, the majority of enclosures I see that are trying to be "Natural" and "bioactive" by including plants, aren't natural and are just as unnatural to the specific species or tarantula as fake plants due to the fact that the plants and specific clean up crews used in almost all cases are not native plants to the tarantula's environment thus I agree with

all that I have ever seen is a wild guess, as as far as that guess go is that people know that plants naturally grow outside and there are soil life forms, so having plants and them in a set up makes it a 'natural' set up. This is just something thhat makes people feel like they are doing something. People should own the fact that they are not making "natural" set ups they're just guessing and making planted set ups.

Whether you include real plants or fake plants, random plants are only marginally more natural than the fake. This goes the same for choices of substrate, what we use in the hobby some are only a little more natural than the other but none that we use are natural as in native soils to the tarantulas except in the case of @RezonantVoid being able to collect soils he finds some of his species in. All the 'natural set ups' are guesses, and at most pseudo-naturalistic.

With all that being said, there are differences to be seen by creating pseudo-natural applications to keeping. In my plant world some of the plants I grow, to most people can be some of the hardest plants to keep alive because most people are just hobbyists and dont look/have ability at soil science and do experiments to recreate a type of soil that is more natural to them as I have, and then understand the full yearly water need cycle thhat changes. I progressed the keeping of these plants by not fully recreating thhe exact environment they grow in, but applied thhe science of soils to apply it in a way that translated into a situation where an overview of the dynamics of their soil types was recreated in the horticultural hobby, but it is not natural, i stress it is still not natural.

The hobby needs to understand the fact that all most poeple will ever do will never qualify to be a truly natural set up. and "Bioactive" is a marketing ploy that sells more materials plants and arthropods and gets more views on youtube, all soils are bioactive, all set ups are too because we dont live in a clean room. People on YT like that dave guy just parrots out useless falsities about natural and bioactive.

Of course no setups will be 100% true to the animal's natural environment unless you live in their native range and can collect local flora and fauna. That doesn't mean that substitutions are bad.

Ultimately, including live plants or clean up crews in captivity is usually not about recreating a symbiotic or mutualistic relationship from nature. (Yes, sometimes it is like keeping clownfish with anemones.) It's about replicating broader principles of their environments that provide benefits to the animal. For example, I keep tropical fish and include aquatic plants from different parts of the world, but my fish don't feed on specific plants; they just need the plants for cover and to help remove waste products from the water column. Most animals don't need a specific plant to survive. We're not keeping koala bears and giving them bamboo plants to eat instead of eucalyptus leaves.

If the logic is don't bother keeping them unless you can replicate their needs true to their natural environment, then you couldn't keep them at all because how natural is it for our tarantulas to be eating dubia roaches, crickets and mealworms? Most of the species we keep are not eating those insects in their natural environment.

Surely what we feed our tarantulas is of much, much greater consequence than whether the plant or springtail in their enclosure is local to their native range?

We've found substitutions for their native diet. Likewise, people who opt for more naturalistic setups are finding substitutions for their native environments.

I've seen native North American tarantulas in several different southwestern states and I've never seen them in an area that's completely dirt. I've spent several weeks over several years camping in our deserts. The desert is full of plant life, animals and insects. The desert is full of riparian zones, vernal pools, larger bodies of water, etc.

Springtails and isopods work. Bioactive setups with clean up crews, plants and a good soil mix are not equivalent to plain dirt. Anyone who has made the transition clearly knows this. No, I don't think everyone has to do bioactive, but to reiterate my post above, these knee-jerk attacks on bioactive or more naturalistic setups have zero evidence to backup their claims when people who have made the change have seen and documented the benefits. (In my case, I'm talking about my husbandry of snakes.)

This idea that bioactive setups are a commercial racket is laughable. Of course it will cost money, but in the long term I'm no longer buying bags of aspen for my snake enclosures because the soil maintains itself in my bioactive enclosures.

 

[Dorifto]

@Smotzer looks like you have lost the point of our aproach. Our aproach is not to fully recreate every single aesthetic points of their habitat, but to offer them the same or as close as possible conditions.

Agree that we don't use native plants, but we can use plant with the same requeriments that will keep the soil within their range, we can use soils that perform the "same" rather than sintetic and poor performing soils like coco fiber. We can use similar cucs that perform the same, rather than paying 100x the price to be 100% accurate. All of this in conjunction, even is separately they are not "accurate" they will offer a more accurate enclosure, dynamically speaking. And I can continue like this all day long.

Our approaching is not form over function, it's function over form, but if achieving that we can make the enclosure more visually appealing why not?

 

[Smotzer]

I

@Smotzer looks like you have lost the point of our aproach. Our aproach is not to fully recreate every single aesthetic points of their habitat, but to offer them the same or as close as possible conditions.

Agree that we don't use native plants, but we can use plant with the same requeriments that will keep the soil within their range, we can use soils that perform the "same" rather than sintetic and poor performing soils like coco fiber. We can use similar cucs that perform the same, rather than paying 100x the price to be 100% accurate. All of this in conjunction, even is separately they are not "accurate" they will offer a more accurate enclosure, dynamically speaking. And I can continue like this all day long.

Our approaching is not form over function, it's function over form, but if achieving that we can make the enclosure more visually appealing why not?

actually I am in support of the approach in some cases but like the first words I wrote said “let me play devils advocate”….so don’t get too wrapped up in your way buzz word reading that you miss the point of my approach

 

[Jumbie Spider]

Most keepers are too addicted to give their Ts anything beyond the bare minimum care required.
They'll just stack kitchen wares under their beds and still look for more to add to the "collection".
Not anyone on this forum of course.

 

[Benson1990]

It's interesting stuff to read I have to say, I'm definitely liking the idea of naturalistic setups, I do this with my snakes so I don't see why my tarantulas should be any different, I no they're a lot more fragile than reptiles but even so you could set it up in a safe way.

I actually recently started a thread about collecting materials from the wild to use in my enclosures, it was a video by Daves little beasties on collecting moss and mulch from nature, looks a good idea but I think you'd need to be very mindful of where you collect from.

I'm assuming one could go naturalistic without going full bioactive and still get the same benefits, I don't think bioactive is for me.

 

[Dorifto]

I

actually I am in support of the approach in some cases but like the first words I wrote said “let me play devils advocate”….so don’t get too wrapped up in your way buzz word reading that you miss the point of my approach

It could be, humidity fogs my phone screen

It made me understand it like you were trying to find every minor discrepancy also my tone was not defensive


Also I had to dissagree about the Dave's statements, it's one of the few youtubers that really explains in a very easy manner things that others youtubers omit or simply repeat. The only thing that I disagree from his methods is the use of a drainage layers. Imho it's one of the things that it could change to the better.

Ps: I'm trying to upload a video, but it's <edit> huge

 

[YungRasputin]

To play devils advocate, the majority of enclosures I see that are trying to be "Natural" and "bioactive" by including plants, aren't natural and are just as unnatural to the specific species or tarantula as fake plants due to the fact that the plants and specific clean up crews used in almost all cases are not native plants to the tarantula's environment thus I agree with

all that I have ever seen is a wild guess, as as far as that guess go is that people know that plants naturally grow outside and there are soil life forms, so having plants and them in a set up makes it a 'natural' set up. This is just something thhat makes people feel like they are doing something. People should own the fact that they are not making "natural" set ups they're just guessing and making planted set ups.

Whether you include real plants or fake plants, random plants are only marginally more natural than the fake. This goes the same for choices of substrate, what we use in the hobby some are only a little more natural than the other but none that we use are natural as in native soils to the tarantulas except in the case of @RezonantVoid being able to collect soils he finds some of his species in. All the 'natural set ups' are guesses, and at most pseudo-naturalistic.

With all that being said, there are differences to be seen by creating pseudo-natural applications to keeping. In my plant world some of the plants I grow, to most people can be some of the hardest plants to keep alive because most people are just hobbyists and dont look/have ability at soil science and do experiments to recreate a type of soil that is more natural to them as I have, and then understand the full yearly water need cycle thhat changes. I progressed the keeping of these plants by not fully recreating thhe exact environment they grow in, but applied thhe science of soils to apply it in a way that translated into a situation where an overview of the dynamics of their soil types was recreated in the horticultural hobby, but it is not natural, i stress it is still not natural.

The hobby needs to understand the fact that all most poeple will ever do will never qualify to be a truly natural set up. and "Bioactive" is a marketing ploy that sells more materials plants and arthropods and gets more views on youtube, all soils are bioactive, all set ups are too because we dont live in a clean room. People on YT like that dave guy just parrots out useless falsities about natural and bioactive.

i take exception to the point of guesses with respect to me insomuch as when i’m doing research and building a terrarium, i’m directly copying the specimen’s natural environment - i spend hours pouring over all available media pertaining to places like the Ghats mountain ranges, Usambara mountain ranges, and other various places where these animals are found

sometimes i even use direct recordings when available eg: my mountain slope enclosure for my OBT-UMV was modeled directly after footage of OBT’s in the natural environment in the Usambara mountains

now, with this being said - here is some self-criticism: my enclosures at present aren’t a perfect expression of the ideal that i am aspiring too - that’s what i think is so great about this discourse - you and ATX and others have given me a lot to think about and a lot of goals still yet to reach (perfect timing as i begin to prepare for the big Rufilata enclosure build)

now with that being said i have some thoughts on the point of native plants, native substrate, etc (which i think are really good ideas which i want to figure out but to play “devil’s advocate” here) - let’s take my Rufilata project as an example and explore this

which would be a better enclosure or, rather, a more naturalist enclosure

a) i use soil straight from the Ghats mountain ranges, i throw in plants and so on native to the specific area of the Ghats in which Red-Slates are found *however* everything is just thrown in there and no other consideration is had per it’s design other than what is native and what is pleasing aesthetically

b) while i have not obtain native species of plants or native dirt - i have directly modeled the layout, design, etc of the enclosure to mirror the specific places in the Ghats mountains that the Red-Slate is found in - at the base of trees, in the trees, in the leaves, etc - so in this case that layout’s function is to provide the specificity conditions that the Red-Slates are found in

now which is truly natural? which would truly be naturalism? I would argue enclosure B - why? because to me and what I’m saying it’s not just *what* is in the enclosure but how every piece within that enclosure is placed, how it functions by itself and in conjunction with the whole, etc because i don’t think naturalism, in this context, is negated by using non-native materials

another consideration is making sure the substrate is going to provide the exact environmental parameters for the species - so again, using my Red-Slate example: i could get soil straight from the Ghats but who’s to say that soil is going to produce the aforementioned environmental parameters? i could v easily throw it in the enclosure and it just turns to useless mud or some such thing

whereas i use natural substrates (top soil, sands, moss, etc), exploit their natural physical properties and produce the environmental parameters or conditions the Red-Slate naturally lives in eg: i created a mix of substrates where a) that hold a lot of moisture - top soil, moss, peat, etc and b) prevent mold formation - sand takes up space in between substrates and separates particles within that substrate and prevents mold - in this way i can produce the elevated humidity that’s part of the species environmental parameters

to me substrate is a tool, it has certain physical properties, it produces specific conditions and knowing this, you can exploit this - which ultimately goes back to my point of *function* and *conditions* - tho i am open to the point about native plants, how species may interact with those plants, what is their relationship, and so on